The present invention relates to iron type golf club heads, and in particular, to an improved peripheral weighted iron type golf club head having an alignment and sighting means on its upper top ridge surface and a complementary weight system adjacent the center of percussion at the rear of the club head.
Conventional type iron golf club heads include a top ridge on the top of a club which diverges in an angular direction upwardly and outwardly from the hosel toward the toe of the club head. This conventional structure has been developed for iron type club heads to maximize the weighting characteristics of the club head and to maximize the ball striking surface on the club head. This distribution of the weight toward the toe balances the club head while maintaining the center of percussion generally near the center of the ball striking face. A shortcoming of this type of design is that the top edge or top ridge line of the club head, because of the diverging direction, makes it impossible to use for alignment purposes.
Various attempts have been made to provide a club head with a rectangular club face and top line extending straight across the entire length of the ball striking face in a direction perpendicular to the intended target line for alignment purposes, for example, as shown in the Swanson U.S. Pat. No. (4,345,763).
Peripheral weighted golf club heads are also quite well known in the art as evidenced by the patent to Solheim (D-276,644). These types of clubs are generally more forgiving of golf shots struck off the center of percussion and toward the periphery of the club head because most of the mass is located in these areas thus maximizing energy transfer to the golf ball even though the center of percussion is not precisely hit. Although these type of club heads provide improved performance when a golfer miss-hits a ball, there is still a sacrifice in appreciable distance and accuracy when the ball is miss-hit. A particular shortcoming of this type of golf club head is a loss of feel and/or control when a ball is miss-hit off of the precise center of percussion.